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Last Month, I started a series on the last meals of the rich and famous. I’m very excited to continue this after such a long hiatus. My apologies for that by the way, work has been a bit of a nightmare. The good news is that I do in fact still have a job and am thus able to continue funding my internet connection and tea addiction.

With the explanations out of the way, let’s crack on, shall we?

Second Class Passengers of the TitanicDeath – 1912 from a rather pesky iceberg sitting in the middle of the North Atlantic.

In my previous post, I discussed the rather extravagant final meal of the 1st class passengers. As it turns out, the 2nd class passengers did pretty well for themselves too.

As far as last meals go, I must say that I’m rather impressed. I’ll be interested to see whether I can uncover the final meal of those in steerage for my next post.

Abraham LincolnDeath – Assassinated by John Wilkes-Booth in the Presidential Box of Ford’s Theatre in Washington.

Before Old Abe’s literal final curtain (Sorry, I know that was bad), he dined at the White House on Clear Mock Turtle Soup, roast Virginia fowl with chestnut stuffing, baked yams and cauliflower with cheese sauce.

Jimi HendrixDeath – 1970 after taking 9 sleeping pills and choking on his own vomit. Delicious.

Uncontested rock God and Woodstock icon, Jimi Hendrix (despite is rather Rock n Roll style death) had a somewhat less than revolutionary final meal before his accidental overdose – a simple tuna sandwich.

JFKDeath – Assassinated in 1963 by a gunshot wound to the head that totally came from the School Book Depository and definitely not from the Grassy Knoll, despite what forensic and video evidence suggests.

JFK’s final breakfast was consumed at a meeting with supporters before his fateful Dallas motorcade. It was supposedly quite typical of the pragmatic President – orange juice, coffee, soft-boiled eggs, bacon, and toast with marmalade.

HitlerDeath – Suicide in 1945, alongside his mistress-turned-wife, Eva Braun. A shot to his temple was the method of choice, whereas his bride of less than 48 hours swallowed a cyanide capsule.

Hitler became a vegetarian after the suicide of his niece, Geli Raubal. On a side note, I highly recommend that you read up on that inappropriate train wreck of a relationship.

Despite often being caught eating meat, Hitler’s final meal adhered to his vegetarian diet. It consisted of a simple vegetable soup with mashed potatoes.

That’ it for now, kids. I promise that with my life settling down a bit there won’t be such large gaps in between posts. I look forward to throwing more food related history at you soon.

A big thanks to Katie for bringing this story to my attention. I majored in WWII History at uni, and my waist line currently majors in chocolate, so this is the perfect topic for me to discuss.

Newly uncovered WWII documents reveal that the Nazis were plotting to assassinate Winston Churchill with a bomb disguised as a chocolate bar. The plan was to coat the explosives with a thin layer of dark chocolate and then package them as ‘Peter’s’ branded chocolate bars. The idea was to have them smuggled into the War Cabinet’s dining room where Churchill and other important members of parliament would often meet. The device was designed to explode seven seconds after being unwrapped, killing everyone within a few metres of the sweet and sugary impact. The theory behind this plot was to exploit the Prime Minister’s weakness for chocolate.

Unfortunately for the Nazis, it wasn’t just their chocolate that was foiled. British spies discovered the plot and quickly warned one of MI5’s most senior intelligence chiefs – Lord Victor Rothschild. He proceeded to alert the nation and advised them to look out for exploding candy bars. He even had an illustrator friend, Laurence Fish, draw up pictures of the bars so he could distribute them amongst the public. Interestingly, Fish’s wife found the correspondence between her husband and Rothschild in 2009. The letter was dated May 4, 1943 and was marked ‘secret’. It detailed the German plot and supposedly included a rather poor drawing of the device by Rothschild.

Suffice to say, with the plot made public, there were no chocolate bombs exploding in parliament.

A little research on my behalf also revealed that chocolate wasn’t the only item that the Nazis were planning on using to disguise explosives. German saboteurs also utilized tinned plums, throat lozenges, shaving brushes, batteries, wood, and my personal favourite – stuffed dogs. I can’t imagine how the latter would even work.

I’d like to finish by thanking everyone who contacted me after my Darrell Lea article. It was incredibly touching and I very much appreciated it.